Palm Beach County Schools, Florida - Missing Monies

Palm Beach County Schools are at it again. Now, they are investigating the unknown charges to school board credit cards. The credit cards were given to principals and select teachers to buy discretionary items. Now, there are missing invoices, missing receipts, hundreds of thousands of dollars not accounted for in spending, and the list goes on.


The spenders are saying they were not given adequate guidelines about how to use the credit cards.

The school board says they do not know who spent what money nor what was bought.

Not upset enough, the credit card spending limit was $1000 per purchase. This seems to be the only thing that everyone agrees upon. Yet, the investigation is beginning to show that some clever principals/teachers decided to buy more expensive items and pay for it using the credit card anyway. Here is an example how they were able to do this.: Shop for something that costs $2200. Then, pay with your school board credit card on three different charges, $800. $800, and $600 which totals the $2000. This also stays below the $1000 spending limit. Well, it sort of – kind of does. Doesn’t it?

Trained or not in using the credit cards, what school employee would think that paying for one item in small pieces is acceptable?

What person spends a county public school system’s money without keeping the receipts? Losing some receipts is expected. Losing hundreds of thousands of dollars with is a different ballgame.